DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4326#0010
C NIDUS. 5
cutting through the rocks which it was necessary to remove, they viewed the injurious effects
of the splinters of stone on the workmen's eyes as a divine manifestation, and having consulted
the oracle of Delphi, they obtained the sanction of the god to the abandonment of the task, and
consequently to an immediate submission to Harpagus.* Indeed with the exception of the
people of Pedasa, who held out for a short time in Mount Lida, neither the Carians nor the Greeks
settled in Caria, performed anything memorable against the invader,* The distinction of races
made by the historian on this occasion seems to have been long maintained in Caria, and was
manifested by a difference of language.-f Left by the colonizing Greeks in possession of the
poorer parts of the country, the descendants of the aboriginal Carians were noted as dwelling in
lofty situations,t whence like other hardy mountaineers they engaged themselves as mercenary
soldiers or seamen ; a custom which appears to have existed among them as early as the third gene-
ration before the Trojan war, when they were reduced to obedience by Minos, and employed by
him in maintaining the Cretan sovereignty of the Grecian seas.§
During the subjection of Asia Minor to the Persian Empire, Cnidus, like many of the other
maritime republics, appears to have been in a state of submissive alliance with the satraps of the
Great King, though in its naval relations it was not exempt from the paymetit of a tribute to Athens,
as long as Athens was mistress of the sea. This was a condition not inconsistent with a consi-
derable degree of independence and prosperity, and Cnidus may even have profited by contests,
in which she was only indirectly engaged. During the two centuries of Persian domination in
Asia Minor, this city produced the historian Ctesias, who was physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon,||
and Eudoxus, the eminent mathematician and legislator, who was the cotemporary and friend of
Plato.H Archias whose name we find mentioned as that of another legislator of Cnidus,** lived
probably in the same period.
Two occurrences in history tend to shew the importance of Cnidus in these ages. When
Darius was meditating the conquest of Greece, he sent his physician Democedes of Crotona on
an exploratory mission to Greece and Italy, with two triremes and a ship of burthen laden with
valuable commodities. His emissaries after having inspected and noted down the most important
parts of the coasts of Greece, passed over to Tarentum in Italy, a Lacedaemonian colony, where
the tyrant Aristophilides arrested the Persians, for the purpose of allowing Democedes to escape
to his native city; he then released them and they proceeded to Crotona. Here the people not
only refused to deliver up their countryman, who was claimed as a slave of Darius, but they seized
* Herodot. I. 174. et seq. Neither Pedasa which was in
Mount Lida, above Halicarnassus, nor the Cnidian isthmus de-
scribed by Herodotus, have yet been explored by travellers.
f Homer, II. B. 867. Herodot. VIII. 135.
+ winrep ol Kaptg /itv ovv
'Em \6<j>wv o'lKOvaiv, ZyaO', ao<pakua.Q ovvttca.
Aristoph. Av. 292.
§ Herodot. I. 171. — Thucyd. 1. 4, 8. —Lycophr. v. 1386.
—Strabo, p. 48,661.
|| Strabo, p. 656, 779. Plutarch, Artax. 1. — Lucian. Ver.
Hist. 1, 3.—de conscrib. hist. 39. Suid. in Kr»<rme.—Tzetz.
Chil. 1, 83.
f Strabo, p. 656. — Diogen. Laert. VIII. 88.—Plutarch,
adv. Colot. 32. Mor. X. p. 631. (1126).
** Theodorit. Gr. Att. IX. 16.
cutting through the rocks which it was necessary to remove, they viewed the injurious effects
of the splinters of stone on the workmen's eyes as a divine manifestation, and having consulted
the oracle of Delphi, they obtained the sanction of the god to the abandonment of the task, and
consequently to an immediate submission to Harpagus.* Indeed with the exception of the
people of Pedasa, who held out for a short time in Mount Lida, neither the Carians nor the Greeks
settled in Caria, performed anything memorable against the invader,* The distinction of races
made by the historian on this occasion seems to have been long maintained in Caria, and was
manifested by a difference of language.-f Left by the colonizing Greeks in possession of the
poorer parts of the country, the descendants of the aboriginal Carians were noted as dwelling in
lofty situations,t whence like other hardy mountaineers they engaged themselves as mercenary
soldiers or seamen ; a custom which appears to have existed among them as early as the third gene-
ration before the Trojan war, when they were reduced to obedience by Minos, and employed by
him in maintaining the Cretan sovereignty of the Grecian seas.§
During the subjection of Asia Minor to the Persian Empire, Cnidus, like many of the other
maritime republics, appears to have been in a state of submissive alliance with the satraps of the
Great King, though in its naval relations it was not exempt from the paymetit of a tribute to Athens,
as long as Athens was mistress of the sea. This was a condition not inconsistent with a consi-
derable degree of independence and prosperity, and Cnidus may even have profited by contests,
in which she was only indirectly engaged. During the two centuries of Persian domination in
Asia Minor, this city produced the historian Ctesias, who was physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon,||
and Eudoxus, the eminent mathematician and legislator, who was the cotemporary and friend of
Plato.H Archias whose name we find mentioned as that of another legislator of Cnidus,** lived
probably in the same period.
Two occurrences in history tend to shew the importance of Cnidus in these ages. When
Darius was meditating the conquest of Greece, he sent his physician Democedes of Crotona on
an exploratory mission to Greece and Italy, with two triremes and a ship of burthen laden with
valuable commodities. His emissaries after having inspected and noted down the most important
parts of the coasts of Greece, passed over to Tarentum in Italy, a Lacedaemonian colony, where
the tyrant Aristophilides arrested the Persians, for the purpose of allowing Democedes to escape
to his native city; he then released them and they proceeded to Crotona. Here the people not
only refused to deliver up their countryman, who was claimed as a slave of Darius, but they seized
* Herodot. I. 174. et seq. Neither Pedasa which was in
Mount Lida, above Halicarnassus, nor the Cnidian isthmus de-
scribed by Herodotus, have yet been explored by travellers.
f Homer, II. B. 867. Herodot. VIII. 135.
+ winrep ol Kaptg /itv ovv
'Em \6<j>wv o'lKOvaiv, ZyaO', ao<pakua.Q ovvttca.
Aristoph. Av. 292.
§ Herodot. I. 171. — Thucyd. 1. 4, 8. —Lycophr. v. 1386.
—Strabo, p. 48,661.
|| Strabo, p. 656, 779. Plutarch, Artax. 1. — Lucian. Ver.
Hist. 1, 3.—de conscrib. hist. 39. Suid. in Kr»<rme.—Tzetz.
Chil. 1, 83.
f Strabo, p. 656. — Diogen. Laert. VIII. 88.—Plutarch,
adv. Colot. 32. Mor. X. p. 631. (1126).
** Theodorit. Gr. Att. IX. 16.